1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism, and more particularly to a rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism, which will automatically move the angle position of the rear-view mirror to downward when the transmission of a vehicle is shifted to the reverse position for moving backward, and will restore the angle position of the rear-view mirror automatically to the original angle when the shift to the reverse position is released.
2. Description of the Related Art
In rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism of vehicles to date, there is known a mechanism which automatically moves down the rear-view mirrors. More specifically, to the rear-view mirror mounted on the passenger seat side of a vehicle when the vehicle moves starts to move backward so as to allow the driver to easily check to see the position of gutters placed on the shoulder of the road and the position of parking slot lines at the time of parking, and which automatically restores the angle position of the rear-view mirror to the angle position prior to moving it down when the vehicle stops moving backward.
The known rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism may comprise a manipulator member for selecting the rear-view mirror to be adjusted (for example the rear-view mirror on the passenger seat side), reverse position detector means for detecting the position of transmission of the vehicle shifted to the reverse position, rear-view mirror driving means for driving in a vertical direction the angle of rear-view mirror, controller means for moving down the angle position of the rear-view mirror by means of the rear-view mirror driver means when either one of rear-view mirrors is selected by the manipulator member (for example, the rear-view mirror on the passenger seat side) if the transmission is detected to shift to the reverse position by the reverse position detector means, and an open/close detector means for detecting the change in the position of driver seat side door from the closed position to the opened position or vice versa.
During the period after either one of rear-view mirrors is selected by the manipulator means, until the change in the driver seat side door position is detected by the open/close detector means, if the reverse position shift is detected by the reverse position detector means, the controller means will move down the angle position of the rear-view mirror by means of the rear-view mirror driver means. On the other hand, after either one of rear-view mirrors is selected by the manipulator means, when the change in the driver seat side door position is detected by the open/close detector means, if the reverse position shift is detected by the reverse position detector means, the controller will prevent the rear-view mirror from moving down by means of the rear-view mirror driving means.
Also, the known rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism as described above further comprises a sensor for detecting the angle position of the rear-view mirror and generating the angle information indicative of the detected result, and a memory for storing the angle information generated by the sensor.
In the controller means, when it is detected by the reverse position detecting means that the transmission of vehicle is shifted to the reverse position, the sensor will be driven to detect the angle position of the rear-view mirror to generate the angle information indicative of the detection result, to transmit thus generated angle information into the memory to store it therein, and then the angle information stored in the memory will be read out when the transmission is shifted to any position other than the reverse position so as to restore the angle position of the rear-view mirror from the downward direction to the original position on the basis of the read angle information.
The known rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism as described above moves downwardly the angle position of rear-view mirror when the transmission of vehicle is shifted to the reverse position while at the same time storing the angle information representative of the angle immediately before the downward movement into a memory, then restores the angle position of the rear-view mirror from the downward direction to the original position on the basis of the read angle information stored in the memory and representative of the mirror angle position before moving down, when the transmission is shifted to any position other than the reverse position. In the angle information indicative of the mirror angle position of the rear-view mirror there is a slight error included therein in general. Thus when storing into the memory the mirror angle of rear-view mirror including the error and then restoring the mirror angle position of rear-view mirror from the moved-down position to the original position by using the angle information read out from the memory, the known mechanism has the problem that it cannot restore the angle position of rear-view mirror completely to the original position. The mirror may be placed at an angle different from the original position by the amount of error included in the angle position information.
In such a case, when storing the angle position information including some error into the memory and then restoring the mirror angle position of rear-view mirror to the original position by using the angle position information read out from the memory including the error, namely moving the mirror position once or twice, the driver will recognize that the rear-view mirror is moved back to the original angle position since the amount of error is very small. However after repeating the rear-view mirror moving operation several times, the small amount of error will be accumulate to become a large amount of error, so that the driver can recognize that the rear-view mirror is not restored to the original angle position. The driver may then need to adjust the rear-view mirror angle position once again to the desired position.
With respect to this point, by providing a mirror angle detector of higher resolution for detecting the angle position of rear-view mirror and by providing a controller of higher precision so as to be capable of analyzing preciously the angle position information output from the mirror angle detector of higher resolution, the error included in the angle position information might be eliminated or reduced to a negligible value. However when using such high resolution mirror angle detector or high precision controller, the manufacturing cost of the rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism will increase, and the increased manufacturing cost in turn will increase the total cost of the unit vehicle.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and has an object to overcome the above problems and to provide a rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism for moving down the angle position of the rear-view mirror when the transmission of the vehicle is shifted to the reverse position, and for restoring the rear-view mirror to the original angle position when the transmission is again shifted to any other position than the reverse position in a positive manner, which can be made at lesser cost as well.
To achieve the object in accordance with the purpose of the invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, this invention provides a rear-view mirror driving and controlling mechanism, comprising a rear-view mirror mounted on a vehicle; a mirror manipulator for moving the angle of the rear-view mirror; a reverse position detector linked to a transmission of the vehicle for generating reverse position signals when the transmission is shifted into the reverse position; a controller for detecting the operation status of the mirror manipulator and the presence or absence of the reverse position signals to move the angle position of the rear-view mirror on the basis of detected results; a rear-view mirror angle detector for generating angle detection signals representative of the angle position of the rear-view mirror; and a rear-view mirror angle storage for storing the angle position detection signals; wherein the controller instructs the rear-view mirror angle detector to generate the angle position detection signals each time the angle position of the rear-view mirror is moved when the reverse position detection signals are not generated so as to store thus obtained angle position detection signals in the rear-view mirror angle storage, while the controller instructs to move down the angle position of the rear-view mirror when the reverse position detection signals are generated, and the controller instructs to restore the angle position of the rear-view mirror to the angle position stored in the rear-view mirror angle storage on the basis of the latest angle position detection signal.
In accordance with the configuration as described above, in performing the rear-view mirror turn and back operation that moves down the angle position of rear-view mirror when the transmission of vehicle is shifted to the reverse position and then restoring the rear-view mirror to the original and previously set angle position when thereafter the transmission is shifted to any other position than the reverse position, the rear-view mirror is moved back to the originally preset angle position on the basis of the latest angle position detection signal detected when the reverse detection signal is not output and stored in the rear-view mirror angle storage, so that the inventive mechanism assures that the slight error included in the angle position detection signal will not be accumulated if the rear-view mirror turn and back operation is iteratively repeated for a number of times, and that the angle position of rear-view mirror will be moved back to the angle position preset by the driver even when an inexpensive controlling system is adopted.
Also, in accordance with the present invention it is desirable that the rear-view mirror is mounted on the passenger seat side of the vehicle.
In this configuration, when the vehicle moves backward, the driver may clearly recognize the road condition of the passenger seat side that is a blind spot for the driver by moving down the rear-view mirror mounted on the passenger seat side of the vehicle.